As discussed earlier, the installation and effective operation of an autonomous IS depends in practice on tight vocabulary control through the use of a rigid syntax and restricted lexicon. The effect this has is to very tightly constrain the range of possible directions a conversation can take, and to limit the scope of what a customer can do in the course of any interaction. This is efficient, convenient, and cost-effective.

The power implications are subtle but significant, in that the more people come to depend on the use of ISBL-based modes of interaction, either through economic incentives or the lure of convenience, the more accustomed they become to reduced possibilities for questioning and negotiating with organisations. What happens, in effect, is that the difficulties of dealing with exceptional or unusual issues become greater when the customer has to step outside the normal mode of interaction, use a different language of interaction, and rely on finding an organisational representative able to understand the problem. Given the focus on efficiency that an ISBL installation represents, one of the side effects is that the organisation itself also has a reduced capacity to talk about and understand exceptional circumstances. It seems likely that this type of issue will become increasingly problematic in relation to government agencies, where special cases can in any circumstances be difficult to resolve given the opacity of many rules and regulations (Herzfeld, 1992). A typical example is where a person seeking some form of social support is unable to satisfy an autonomous system that she or he has the attributes required of one of the organisation’s clients, and is therefore implicitly defined as an ‘outsider’. The challenge, often a discouraging one in practice, is for the person concerned to find another avenue into the organisation through which to change its perception of the situation.

A prediction such as this is not based on any assumption of cynical intent on the part of organisations. What the ISBL perspective suggests, however, is that the very convenience and efficiency of interactions based on a simplified language used in a fully controlled environment creates new possibilities for the exertion of ‘bottom-line’ pressures by organisational stakeholders (Laverty, 1996). The mere existence of a streamlined mode of operation is a threat to customers or clients who need a larger vocabulary than the one available with which to state or negotiate their requirements. It is also conceivable that some loss of in-depth organisational knowledge will occur. Once the ‘understanding’ of an interaction is totally devolved to an autonomous IS, the temptation is to adopt the system’s interpretation of what can and cannot be done as defining the limits of possibility (Herzfeld, 1992).